In 1510, according to Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja’s Caitanya-caritāmrta, Caitanya brought Bilvamaṅgala’s composition Kṛṣṇakarṇāmṛta with him to Purī from a pilgrimage in South India. Kṛṣṇakarṇāmṛta is a passionate praise of Kṛṣṇa in erotic verses. The work has been highly appreciated for centuries throughout India. It has had a great influence on the emotionalism of the Bengali faith. Kṛṣṇakarṇāmṛta is also highly appreciated by the Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyās, whose ideas are captured in the teachings of Bengal Vaishnavism.
The earliest mention of Kṛṣṇakarṇāmṛta dates back to 1367. And the earliest possible mention of the author (= Bilvamaṅgala), as pointed out by F. Wilson in The Love of Krishna: The Kṛṣṇakarṇāmṛta of Līlāśuka Bilvamaṅgala, we find in Madhvācārya’s Sarvamūla (see Śrimat Sarvamūlam; The Collected Works of Madhvācārya, Vol. 3, ed. R. Kṛṣṇācārya and Rāmācārya; Bombay: Nirnaya Sagar Press, 1892):
There has been some discussion as to what bilvamaṅgalaḥ sādhuḥ may mean here. It is possible that it is a benevolent utterance or praise. The A.S. Acharya (from Tattvavada school) is of the opinion that by adding bilvamaṅgalaḥ sādhuḥ, Madhva may have drawn attention to a good and holy, though simple man named Bilvamaṅgala, who was among the circle of Madhva’s disciples and followers. According to B.N.K. Sharma, according to tradition, bilvamaṅgalaḥ sādhuḥ was supposedly uttered by Madhva. Sharma is of the opinion that one should not see this as a mantra. Sharma has not offered any explanation of the words bilvamaṅgalaḥ sādhuḥ as an address to the poet. These words have no traditional meaning in the Madhva-sampradāya. P. Hayagrīvācārya Guttal (Tattvavada school) of Deccan College wrote an article on the possible meanings of these words as a mantra or as an address to a poet (Poona, 1960?).
The 1974 edition of Bannanje Govindacarya’s Sarvamūla (vol. 5), based on the manuscript of Hṛṣīkēśa Tīrtha, a disciple of Madhva, does not contain these words. The discrepancies are quite real. There is little information and no one has done solid research on this subject yet. But I know that there were several Bilvamaṅgalas and they lived at different times, scholars note the period of their life in 5th–14th centuries. It is also worth remembering that we have several versions of Kṛṣṇakarṇāmṛta. The shortest version is the Bengali version (122 stanzas). Prof. De considers it to be the most ancient. The other five versions are South Indian. And a few commentaries on them all. The second and third parts of the southern versions, which are not in the Bengali version, were added to the first part after Caitanya had received his copy of the Bengali version in South India about 1510.
Rūpa Gosvāmin compiled a Sanskrit anthology and entitled it Padyāvalī. In the final 387th stanza of this work, Rūpa says that in compiling the anthology he deliberately refrained from including the poetry of Jayadeva and Bilvamaṅgala. There is not a single stanza in Rūpa’s work from the first part of the Kṛṣṇakarṇāmṛta of any edition. Thus, the first and only part of the Bengali version Rūpa evidently regarded as authentic. However, some stanzas occurring in the second and third parts of the KK with commentaries by Papayallaya Suri are attributed by Rūpa to authors other than Bilvamaṅgala or quoted without attribution.
